Workmen's advocate., 1887-01-08
"FRATRIClDAL STRIFE" ,"
Comrade Seller Writes Letter to
 the Bridgeport standard"

the Otlltr udS. anu lcuClltS Wol hlilS- men not to be afraid of a fight, If necessary;
 To the Editors of the Stdndard'
 The Associated Press, just now, teens with magniied accounts of dissensions and ruptures among the various labor organizations.
 Some capitalistc papers are hardly able to repress their qualification; others of a more phariSaic disposition are she'd ding tears of compassion over this frat rcidal strife"
 To the thoughtful, unbiased mind this wrangling and wrestling within labor unions present merely signs of vigorous youthful life.
 Sheep blindly follow their leaders. One-man power holds unquestioned sway where superstition and hero-worship pre- vail. Among intelligent workers there must ever be a diversity of sentiments, sometimes expressed in strong language.
 What induced the great majority of the fifty thousand toilers, who according to the latest press despatches are about to separate from the K. of L., to join that order? Discomfort with existing social conditions! Will their secession, if true, remove that discontent? No,
  Under some different name they will strive for the same objects.
 SuppOsing these secessionists were by some miracle transported to the moon; how long would it take until the vacuum would be filled by other recruits from the Army of Discomfort?
 What cause have the supporters of the competitive system to gloat over the lack of discipline or intelligence among the wage-workers? Would they rather contend with an ignorant, brutalized mob than reason with intelligent organ ized labor?
 The mad howl raised by fools and knaves against foreign agitators" sounds ridiculous when, at this moment, native Americans, men like Henry George and Heber Newton, carry the banner in the new crusade, as Garrison and Wendell Phillips did in similar movement.
 Like causes will ever produce like effects. Unpaid labor, the source of capitalism, will as surely create discon- tent under the Stars and Stripes as in despotic Russia.
 Conventional lies and moral cowardce are the characteristics of this capitalistc era. A great deal of misunderstanding and unnecessary class hatred might be avoided, if both sides would manfully face the issue and, before it be too late. seek for settlement.
 Charity, no matter how well meant. will not accomplish it, nor does the shal tow cry of Harmony between capital and labor satisfy the discontented un employed. Facts are sometimes ugly. but only towards shrink from reckoning with them. Under our competitive sys- tenn the ruthless struggle for existence forces the wage-worker to seek the high est possible reward for the least possible expenditure of his vitality, while his en- Ployer must, perforce, try to gain the greatest possible amount of labor at the smallest possible cost.
 The manufacturer whose better nature revolts against this brutality is driven to the wall by his less scrupulous competi- tors Mammon triumphs; humanity hides her face in shame To talk under such conditions about harmony between capital and labor is the vllest mockery. Peace and harmony , Will not come until the organized legions of labor will have risen to sufficient in : telllgence to conquer political control by the ballot, and then with the aid of legis- , latlon enacted in the interest of the pro- ducers, pave the way for universal en- operation.
 lhls would enable the toilers to earn the full 'ndiriduai fruit of their toll, and forever destroy the possibility of one hu- man being living on the unpaid labor of another.
 This IS Socialism, and this is at present the ultimatum, at times but instinctivaIv almed at, of the organized producers of the world.
 And what will become of the non- producers, the "better classes". Thor